History of change at Addison Mizner-designed Memorial Park

Wednesday

The march of time will mar any icon, be it of flesh and bones or concrete and rebar.

Memorial Fountain and Park — long the stately postcard of Palm Beach — is no exception.

Palm Beach Daily News publisher Oscar Davies proposed the park as a way to screen the fire bays fronting Town Hall and to honor town pioneers who made out-sized contributions to Palm Beach’s development. Designed by Addison Mizner in 1929, the park has remained largely unchanged through the years.

The fountain will be reconstructed this season, and on Tuesday the Town Council will review a $3.3 million renovation plan for the park and streetscape. Town staff has broken the project into segments so the council could approval all of it or part of it.

Although the basic elements have remained the same, the park one visits today is not exactly as envisioned by Mizner more than 84 years ago. It has not been frozen in time, says longtime former town preservation consultant Jane Day.

The Australian pines, for example, that landscape architect Charles Perrochet had installed as a fountain backdrop and to further screen the fire bays on the north side of Town Hall were replaced early on by palm trees. Landscaping on each side of the reflecting pool has changed a number of times. Deteriorating portions of the fountain were repaired in 1975 and 1988.

The biggest change occurred in 1985, when curved monument walls designed by architect Ames Bennett were added to the park’s north end.

"The purpose of that was to expand the idea of a memorial," Day said.

The walls allowed space to honor more people. Today, inscribed on those wings are the names of all town residents who served in any war and the names of firefighters and police officers who died in the line of duty. The list includes President John F. Kennedy, who served in the Navy during World War II.

In 1991, the state gave the town a grant to repair and renovate the aging park. During that project, the main bowl of the fountain was patched, the depth of the reflecting pond was reduced to improve safety and the original tile from Mizner Industries was removed, Day said.

The reduction in depth, along with the introduction of algae-controlling chlorine years earlier, doomed Mizner’s vision of having large goldfish, or koi, forever populate the reflecting pool.

In 2010, the Florida Department of Transportation gave the town the land between Town Hall and the park that had been used as a traffic cut-though. The Central Fire Station moved out of the building in 2004 and the town no longer needed roadway access in front of Town Hall.

Fresh look at park’s functionality

Aside from adding the curved memorial walls, changes to the park have been minor.

Vicky Hunt, president of the Garden Club of Palm Beach, said she believes now is a good time to make the park more usable for residents and visitors.

The club has helped shape the look of Palm Beach since its formation in 1928, a year before the fountain project was conceived and constructed, and even created the town’s first comprehensive plan.

Earlier this year, the club endorsed a design by Mark Marsh, architect of the Worth Avenue streetscape renovation, and nationally recognized landscape designer Jorge Sanchez. That plan would:

* add a crushed-shell and concrete sidewalk (like those on Worth Avenue and the 400 block of Peruvian Avenue) around the park’s perimeter;

* place canopy trees on each side of the fountain;

* replace tall royal palms with shorter royal palms;

* incorporate an allée of shade trees with benches on the green space south of the fountain;

* add stairs to link that space with the rest of the park;

* extend parallel parking spaces from Town Hall north to the end of the park;

* and convert diagonal spaces on each side of that section of County Road to parallel parking;

* resurface existing sidewalks to match the new interior sidewalk;

* add trees to those exterior sidewalks; and

* install sidewalk bump-outs to boost pedestrian safety.

"What the plan under consideration offers to this park is to make it more of a destination than it is now," Hunt said. "It deserves to be viewed not by car, not as a drive-by viewing, but up-close and personal."

The shade-providing allée of trees and benches proposed for the park’s south end would invite residents to use the park, Hunt said. Sidewalks around the park would make it more pedestrian friendly, as would parking spaces around the park. "The notion is people could pull up to a parking space adjacent to the park and get out more safely," Hunt said. Adding stairs on the south side of the plaza would open the park to Town Hall, she said.

Losing Mizner’s vision?

Jell-O heir Orator Woodward has vehemently opposed the plan since seeing the preliminary concept last fall. The renovation evolved from the Centennial Commission’s desire to create a legacy project honoring the town’s 100th anniversary, which was celebrated in 2011.

Woodward has said he favors a simpler, less expensive renovation that he believes would better preserve Mizner’s original vision.

Hunt maintains that the park is not welcoming.

"It is rather bleak and brutally hot," Hunt said. "Any park you want to attract residents and visitors has to have shade. What this plan does is really respect Mizner’s vision, incorporating shorter royal (palms) but adding shade trees and enhancing the viewing of the fountain and the enjoyment of the area."

Resident Elizabeth Dowdle, an urban planning expert, Garden Club member and former Landmarks Preservation commissioner, worked as a consultant on the project. She famously called the park "the postcard of our town" last August while explaining her support for the project.